It warms my heart to see reports of educators and students who are connecting with each other via virtual platforms. Teachers are holding meetings with their students using video conferencing, students are engaging in academic conversations in safe online spaces with both text and video, and principals are reading books from authors who have given permission, on social media platforms. In this time of uncertainty, when many students left school at the end of one day and found out hours later they were not to return to campus for an indefinite time period, these virtual connections are vital.

An Opportunity Gap

And yet, during this pandemic, in the midst of school closures and quarantines, an opportunity gap has become more glaring. Many students in the rural areas of California that I serve lack wifi or a computing device. Some have phones with limited data plans. The parents of these students often leave before dawn to work in the fields, older siblings taking care of their younger brothers and/or sisters. How do we facilitate distance learning for these students?

Is Your Distance Learning Tech Dependent?

As schools began to close and educators began to reach out to me for support, I designed a lesson plan design template that fostered student connections to their teacher, their peers, and the content. But then I realized that the lesson design template and tools I had provided largely depended on technology. (Click here to read original blogpost for tech dependent learning). I read the California Department of Education’s statement regarding educational opportunities a few hours after making this realization. It reads: “equitable access does not require that local education agencies offer the exact same content through the exact same channel for all students”. This got me thinking.

Same Structure, Different Means

In these unprecedented times, it is vital that we provide our offline students with educational opportunities as well. The remote learning lesson design I had designed previously has been renamed “Tech Dependent”. In considering an approach to provide opportunity in an analog format, “Non-Tech Dependent”, I felt it was important to use a similar design structure.

1. Set the Stage: It is important that we message to students that we are glad to be connected with them and have prepared a learning experience just for them. If you are providing students with a paper packet of learning activity prompts, be sure to including a welcome message and inform them of the activities for the learning experiences to come.
2. Content: While you may not be able to provide multimedia links to content using an analog approach, be sure to vary the representation of content as much as possible. In addition to text, consider visual models of mathematics and science, images from history, and/or graphic organizers. You may even include images of student work submitted digitally by other students. Similarly, take pictures of student work submitted in an analog format to be shared with those engaging in learning on a digital platform. This bridges the gap and helps all students to feel a part of the class as a whole, regardless of their method of learning, tech dependent or offline.
3. Collaboration: Offline students may not be able to collaborate with peers, but it is still important that they speak about their learnings in order to strengthen the connections in their brain. As such, students can speak with a family member about the content they are learning. Consider a note-taking document for students to record their conversations and wonderings as a result of the discussion.
4. Synthesize Learning: There are a multitude of ways that students can demonstrate understanding of content. Consider encouraging students to show evidence of learning via sketchnotes, journal writing, physical representations using household items, and more. Even better, ask your students if they have another way of demonstrating their knowledge, that had never entered your mind!

Fluid Schedules

Many educators are sending home sample schedules for students to follow during the day. These include suggested set times for physical activity, reading, mathematics, etc. While this can be helpful for parents that are at home with their children, there are students in our midst that may have caregivers that continue to work outside the home. These parents still go to work each day, and students may be busy babysitting and caring for the household. Be sure to let your learners know that the schedules are suggestions for those who will benefit from the structure, but that individual students may adjust as needed for the context of their lives.

Remember, You are Important

You are a large part of your students’ lives, even when at a distance. A simple handwritten message on the top of a piece of paper in a packet can make a large difference in making each student feel special. Thank you for all that you are doing for those you serve. For those with, and without access to a digital device.